Die for You

Chapter 68

"Hold still, Freen, dear," Jenna said softly appearing at my side and placing her hand on my forearm, "let me have a look at that for you."

I looked down numbly to see her gently lifting my left arm, barely registering the blood and the shards of glass that were sticking out of it.

"James, can you get me a first aid kit or something please, we'll need to clean this up and take Freen to the hospital just in case."

"Right away, ma'am," James replied, though his voice sounded wrong to my ears. I heard the conference room doors open and close and felt a slight tug at my hand, looking on detachedly as she pulled out a piece of glass from between my first and second knuckles.

"That was very silly, Freen, dear," she told me, her voice sounding strained, "you might have really injured yourself; now, where does it hurt?"

"It's fine, Jenna," I said, or at least I think I said, it sounded like my voice at least. "it doesn't really hurt, and I'm not going to hospital."

"Well, we really need to get it seen to, dear, it's quite a mess."

I lifted it out of her hand and looked at it closely, it was a bit bloody certainly, but apart from a couple of glass splinters that I could see, it's bark was worse than its bite. I dabbed at it with my sleeve and started to clear off the blood.

"Stop that, Freen," Jenna berated me, grabbing at my hand with a surprisingly powerful grip.

"You'll make it worse, at least let me get my tweezers from my bag."

"It's fine, Jenna," I said again, "and you've got more important things to worry about than my hand; we need to get to Ops to get a sit-rep."

"Right now, dear, your hand is the only thing I can do anything about," she replied calmly, "now let me do what I do best while your people find out what's going on."

"What do you mean?" I asked dumbly, "What you do best?"

"Being a mother, dear," she said in a voice that sounded so much like my own mother I nearly collapsed. "Now come and sit down and let me help you."

We were sat at the table with Jenna pulling pieces of glass from my hand when James appeared with Tony, a small plastic first aid kit in his hand.

"Hi, Mrs Armstrong," he said as he sat down next to me, "Freen, what the hell have you done?"

"Broke the television," I said as he began dabbing at my hand with some gauze. "What's going on, James? Is that story for real?"

"Don't know for sure yet," he said, addressing us two of us. "We're doing everything we can to find out though."

"Work harder, James," I muttered, wincing slightly as Tony wiped the blood away from my knuckles with an antiseptic wipe; Jenna hovering with a pair of eyebrow tweezers.

"Doing everything I can, Freen," he replied, "Mel's on the phone to anyone at the Foreign Office that will answer right now. We'll find something out for definite soon."

"Freen, will you hold still," Jenna said gripping my wrist tightly as I clenched my fist in frustration. "I'm trying to get this piece out; stop making it worse."

I unclenched my hand and felt a slight tugging sensation as Jenna went to work, that annoying fucking wipe stinging as it mopped up the damage I had done.

"Not as bad as I thought," I heard Jenna say to Tony.

"No," he agreed, "I don't think there's need for stitches here. I'll bandage it up and it'll be fine."